Aotearoa Martial Arts and Sir Gee Dorr - Kung Fu

I'll say upfront what you can read in my profile- I know nothing about Karate and I am not even close to qualified to judge the style.

Having read a lot of this site recently, some of it steamed of bulshido, reading the orgins of the school

Sir Gee Dorr Kung Fu is an ancient shaolin form of kung fu that was taught to temple guardians known as Jen Chi. Most monks learnt one form or another of shaolin kung fu but the elite that were chosen to protect the monasteries and the Abbot were taught a guardian system such as Sir Gee Dorr Kung Fu.

and the Founder.

Sifu Robert McInnes, started his Martial arts at the age of 5 yrs old and practiced his
Kung Fu everyday, when he grew up he had a passion that ate at him to learn more.....Sifu travelled to China where he spent 4 years with Master Zui at Taishan. Here he mastered the teachings of Sir Gee Dorr being until this day the only westerner accepted by Master Zui. In the seventies to the eighties, Sifu travelled the world competing in competitions mainly in Kung Fu kumites and other fights held throughout Asia. He won 7 World Kumite titles .

By doing this he found he needed to find a way to evolve his system to work in real life situations but not lose sight of the traditional system at the same time..
Sifu's love for Asia is what bought him back to the land where martial arts evolved and is given the respect it deserves. Sifu has taught every day for the past 31 years passing on the knowledge he has acquired through 45 years of training in the martial arts. He is probably one of the very few in the world that can say he has either trained or taught martial arts everyday of his life.

In Thailand, Sifu has received numerous awards from people as high ranking as the Crowned Prince of Thailand for his achievements in Martial arts and help with charities. He is without a doubt the most recognized westerner in Thailand in the Martial arts and boxing. Nearly everyone involved in either Muay Thai Boxing or martial arts knows of his name.
Thai fighters from all over travel to study with him to learn boxing skills and punching .

From 1980 to 1991 Sifu opened and ran the Sir Ge Dorr Schools in New Zealand. Over 11000 students went through his schools with huge followings. In 1984, Sifu began the Inner student. In 1992 Sifu returned to Thailand to teach full time at Thai Military Acadamy and International School of Martial Arts where he remains today.

Sifu known for his hard core methods of training has trained some of the best fighters in the world such as Peter Aerts 3 times K1 champion, Stan The Man5 times world champion, Pedro Rizzo UFC world champion, Yodsanan 3k the WBA 130lbs world boxing champion, Yodumlung the former WBA 122lbs world champion, Daniel Dawson ISKA world champion and K1 fighter, Albert Klaus K1 world champion, Chatchai Paiseetong 3 times lumpinee world champion, The tank (Lort Tung, Sukmongkol Sitchuchork 5 time world champion, Rambo II the ISS Muay Thai Champion, and many more, these are just to name a few.

Sifu is one of the very few that has managed to understand and define the art of fighting using traditional methods, and have great success. His philosophy is that all fighting systems have the same base, its how you evolve that base foundation that will result in success. He has proven beyond a doubt that this philosophy works in all aspects of training and fighting, also in other sports as well. In 1992 Sifu took on two fighters one 15 yrs old and the other 13yrs old.

Yodsanan 3k and Yoddumlung as they are known today from 1992 to 2002 these two boys lived, ate, and slept at Sifu's private estate. In this eight year period, both boys whom had never fought before in their lives had straight win victories without a loss all the way to the WBA world title of which they both won. During all this time, only Sifu trained them using his philosophy and methods of training. Although, we are talking about international boxing, the punching and basic philosophy is the same as Sir Ge Dorr. Sifu believes it's just a case of adapting the traditional movement and evolving it into whatever system or method of fighting you are using.

I after reading about them its confusing as they seem to be making some big claims about there history that have already been challenged and exposed at various times in the past, not to mention been seen to be criminally dangerous but are STILL here teaching unsuspecting kids and adults that its all true...

as quoted by the head Instructor of Aotearoa Martial Arts, Charlie Tamati in the NZ herald article above.

One of the few fighters to make it through McInnes' notoriously tough "Inner School" was Charlie Tamati, who teaches 150 students at a Sir Dorr school in Mt Albert, Auckland. Tamati, who takes pupils to Thailand each year to train with McInnes, denies he is a fantasist. "From what I have learned from him he is not just an ordinary Joe Bloggs. He is my sifu, my master. It's not up to us to question him ... We are taught to guard the Shaolin temples from attacks by other Shaolin monks."

the local free paper wrote this article without reference to the events of two years ago. It may be a paid advert disguised as an article though.

Is there anyone with personal experience of Aotearoa Martial Arts or Sir Gee Dorr Kung Fu that can illuminate the discussion?

heres a youtube channel that seems associated with Robert McInnes school in Thailand. It has full contact competition, breaking and demos. It seems the Thais certainly thought he he was legit ( is that awkward now maybe?).

I lived in NZ during the 1980s and '90s and I *think* I remember hearing some unsavory things about this style - maybe even a news report that some kid drowned doing a "wilderness training exercise" that involved swimming to avoid live gunfire. Still, it was a very long time ago and I may not be remembering correctly.

The former Aucklander, whose training methods received national attention in New Zealand after the death of 17-year-old Jason Dooley in July 1989, claims to be a modern-day Shaolin monk and had found favour with the Thai royal family.

New Zealand martial arts experts, who knew McInnes in the 1980s, were not surprised by the charges.

"He wanted to be Rambo," said Nigel Hay, chief instructor for the New Zealand Karate Association. McInnes, who calls himself sifu, or master, attracted thousands of youths to his extreme Sir Dorr brand of kung fu in the late 1980s in Auckland.

Hay said the students were ordered to shave off their hair and swear allegiance to McInnes, and bashed their heads against the floor until they bled to improve their chi, or discipline.

McInnes later contracted out the young fighters as bouncers, who were known as "head-bangers" because of the scab on their forehead.

A coroner found Dooley accidentally drowned when he tried to swim across the flooded Waiwera River, north of Auckland, in bad weather and a strong current.

Police told the inquest into Dooley's death he was among three trainees taking part in a day-long training session that started with exercises in a water-filled ditch.

McInnes fired bullets from a .22 rifle, which landed 400mm from Dooley as part of the group's "adrenalin training", then told the group he wanted to cross the river.

Dooley was swept to his death. Although he was never charged over the drowning, McInnes was sentenced to 10 months' periodic detention for discharging a weapon likely to endanger the life of his students.

Karate expert Hay added: "He was too young to be 'the master' as he claimed. He was trying to be a guru to those young lads.

"I remember one day we were walking to the pub after training and he started trying to walk up walls, it was just bizarre ... I think he made up a lot of the stuff he claimed to have done."

His website says McInnes travelled deep into northern China in the 1960s, where he learned the ways of Sir Dorr from Shaolin monks. This was when few Westerners were permitted into the Communist country, and came soon after Shaolin temples had been purged during the Cultural Revolution. At his 1989 firearms trial, prosecutors produced attendance records from Wesley and De La Salle Colleges in Auckland that proved McInnes had been learning maths and English when he claimed to have been studying 1000-year-old fighting techniques.

Rick Littlewood, a Judo "sensei" who has known McInnes for 25 years, said he was "all talk".

"I think the closest he got to China was going to the video store at the top of Queen St and renting kung fu movies.

"I wasn't surprised when I saw he had been arrested. He was always living in his own little world."

Which makes me angry that Charlie Tamati is still peddling this mumbo jumbo in Auckland, and that the free weekly papers are writing stuff about him giving him credibility.

fairly obvious the guy is bogus. ive never heard of/seen "aotearoa martial arts" represented at a kickboxing event (that i can think of, dont quote me on that) and their webpage has no fight team for muay thai. if the guy was such a big deal in kickboxing, especially in auckland, im pretty sure i would have heard about him- its a pretty tight knit community since basically every gym run in auckland comes straight out of the lee gar city gym.

I seem to recall them having a reputation for producing some particularly aggressive and unprofessional bouncers. Fairly dodgy, but probably more useful self defence than your standard New Zealand CMA or Krotty club. That said, there are much better options available, and I personally would avoid having anything to do with them (especially as they seem to have cultish undertones).

They were notorious in the eighties, but must have shrunk considerably in the 90s after the drowning incident. I am suprised that they are still operating. I think that during the nineties Lee Gar probably took the CMA heavy contact afficionados who otherwise would have been enrolling in Sir Ge Dorr.

Thanks Kave. I think its the fact that they are still operating after all the above and indoctrinating kids with there Bullshido like its the truth that aggravates me. The adults are allowed to be dumbarse's but when its kids getting head jobbed it annoys me. Especially when they are geting community funding etc. it seems

Ah yes a westerner is gallivanting around China during the height of the Cultural Revolution and learns a super secret Shaolin martial art at Taishan, which is a Daoist mountain, no where near the Shaolin Monastery. Sounds completely believable.